Won't get fooled again........

Well, I got a couple e-mails and messages from people who want another DAA movie marathon. So that is coming very soon. But for now, here's one I really liked from early this year that was recently released on DVD:

The Hoax

2007
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom

Clifford Irving is a failed novelist. Rejection after rejection from the publishers leaves him desperate and tight for cash. But then, one day he excitedly informs his agent that he has been contracted to write the book of the century.........The Autobiography of Howard Hughes. And this is during the early 70's, a time when Hughes was maybe the most secluded and sensationalized socialite on earth. People literally thought he had died long ago and been replaced by an impersonator, ala-Bubba-Hotep. In other words, anything written about his life (with his consent) would be guaranteed gold.

The problem is, Clifford Irving has never met Howard Hughes, and he's just making it all up as he goes along.

The Hoax is the true story of one of the most memorable cases of fraud in American history, ironically profiling the infamous man who damn-near-successfully scammed one of the biggest publishing houses in the world with his own fabricated profile of an infamous man. Granted, we've seen plenty of movies about bullshit artists over the years. A good deal of them based on true stories as well. But what separates The Hoax from another similar film like, say, Catch Me If You Can, is that you can really see how people would want to believe Irving's absorbing lies (thanks in no small part to a great performance by Gere). He was obviously a talented man, although more so in mouth than ink. There are scenes where Irving's researcher and partner-in-crime Richard Suskin (played by the underrated-due-to-ugly Alfred Molina) just sits silent in meetings, in awe at his friend's ability to talk his way into literally millions of dollars in advances for this fake biography.

And who the hell was going to argue with him? Howard Hughes was insane as far as everyone was concerned at the time, even his closest friends. So if his lawyers came out and issued public denials, it wasn't too hard of a task to convince people that it was all part of Hughes's "big crazy plan". He had a lot of those back then. What's one more?



Director Lasse Hallstrom doesn't just make movies with flawed characters. He makes movies about the flaws. To that end, I've always considered What's Eating Gilbert Grape to be his most successful film. And after a steady stream of epic almost-too-heartfelt Oscar snacks (Cider House Rules, Unfinished Life, etc), I guess it's kinda nice to see him return to a smaller story, at least in scenic scope.

Just off the strength of Hallstrom's name I had already expected this to be, at the very least, an interesting character study. But what I didn't expect is for the movie to be as funny as it is. Gere impressed me immensely, he plays it to perfection and shows us Irving as he was.....a likable but insanely audacious man with balls the size of baby pandas.

There are a couple side stories working in the film, all of them interesting and fully developed. We see Irving's own decietful relationship with his wife Edith (Marcia Gay Harden), and his eventual paranoia that Hughes is out to kill him for his fraud. But this man's panda-balls are the real heart of the story. Well, not literally, although some scenes like that in the movie might have won it a lot more festival awards. But as it is, watching Irving almost crumble beneath the weight of his own lies as people confront him, and then watching him work his magic once again leaving everyone in the room satisfied and sanguine, it's just one of those "shocking true story" films that really lives up to that description. Check it out.